Post #82 – Women’s Memoirs, Author Conversations – Kendra Bonnett and Matilda Butler
Memoir Writing: The Bad Life
A couple of days ago, Kendra wrote an important blog for memoirists who have had abusive, tragic, or difficult lives. If you missed it, I hope you’ll go back and read it.
Here’s my take on the subject. If you are writing for the benefit of healing, write as much of the story as you can, complete with details. Then tear it up and throw it to the winds or the waves, burn it so that only the ashes remain, bury it in a hole it the garden, or whatever else seems right. That was the version for you, the version for healing. Writing for healing and writing for publication are not the same. This is not a novel point, just one that sometimes needs to be restated.
What readers are looking for is a story well told. Sure. But when reading memoir, readers want to see how other people managed their lives. What did they do to overcome the bad parts of life. Then the reader says, “My situation is different, but you’ve given me some ideas of what I can do.”
Memoir Writing: The Good Life
Kendra’s blog ends with suggestions for writing that kind of memoir. My head began to consider the other type of life. Let’s consider a near perfect childhood. No, there is no such thing as a perfect childhood, but some are pretty darn good. Enough love, enough money, enough advantages, enough friends, enough stability.
If you are writing about an idyllic childhood or even adult years, what do you do? You don’t have to worry about someone being turned off by your stories. You don’t have to worry that the details of the sexual or emotional abuse are too explicit. And with these “good” stories, it seems that the more details the better.
But wait.
Stop.
What keeps the reader engaged in your story? Why does the reader keep turning the pages? What does the reader get from your memoir? I suppose you could say that feel-good stories have their own merit. And perhaps they do. But I’d like to argue that, just like the memoir of tragedy, the memoir of happiness still needs to get to the “So What.”
Let me repeat the words I used above:
But when reading memoir, readers want to see how other people managed their lives.
I think it applies to the positive as well as the negative stories. If you had great parents and a terrific childhood the reader still wants to know what you made of it. What did you do with all that positive energy. How did it give you strength to get through tough times as an adult or how did it enable you to become a certain kind of person.
What Kind of Storytelling Will You Do?
Telling charming stories feels good to writer and reader for a while. We all love it when we see a childhood or adulthood that seems like smooth sailing. But the writer puts years into telling the story. The reader gives hours to the writer and would like to get something back.
That something is an examined life figures out what to do when an unexpected storm hits. That something is insights about lessons not only learned but put into action. How did your particular childhood help you successfully face difficulties in life? What did you learn about yourself as you dug deeply into your life? Did all the fair sailing prepare you for the adult life you had?
Some readers also had good beginnings but now may be struggling. They will read your memoir looking for more than sweet anecdotes. They want to see how you managed so that they can have insights into have to manage their own lives.
Memoir Writing and Digging Deep
From this perspective, it is possible to see that an easy life as well as a difficult life need not be recounted but looked it, turned over, and shared with the benefit of life’s current perspective.
